


Yes We're Going to a Party Party

by drneroisgod



Category: H.I.V.E. Series - Mark Walden
Genre: Birthday Party, Fluff and Crack, Friendship, Gen, I promise, please know that everyone has thought about diabolus darkdoom having sex at some point, so the fact that it comes up in this fic is not weird at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26519842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drneroisgod/pseuds/drneroisgod
Summary: Lucy and Otto are in charge of putting together a party for Laura and Wing's double birthday—but they're stuck!
Relationships: Otto Malpense & Lucia Sinistre | Lucy Dexter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Yes We're Going to a Party Party

“What I don’t understand is,” Otto mumbled through his fingers, “why we’re on birthday party duty when we are, objectively, the least festive friends after Wing.”

Lucy took in his words with a serious expression. “Well, obviously, Laura and Wing can’t do it, and Nigel just had his birthday. Franz’s party-planning privileges were revoked after the shark tank incident, and Shelby’s on strike, so, that leaves just us.”

“Nigel’s birthday does not absolve him of responsibility to the group.”

“No, but he’ll be in charge of Secret Santa on top of birthday planning, _and_ he’s got a big final that day.”

“Any chance Shelby will un-strike?”

Lucy offered Otto a hard look. “Considering she organized all the parties until _this year_ , and no one remembered to plan _her_ birthday party, no, Otto, I do not think Shelby will un-strike.”

“Right,” Otto frowned, a twinge of guilt piercing his chest. He cleared his throat. “Well, we’re smart. We can figure out how to plan a party. Right?”

“Right,” Lucy agreed. “We just need to figure out what a party needs.”

“Food.” Otto began counting on his fingers. “Decorations. Gifts. Cake.”

“Party favors?” Lucy said. “That’s a thing, right?”

Otto snorted. “Shelby never gave anybody party favors.”

“At my birthday last year, everyone got a bag with their favorite candies,” Lucy reminded him. “I still don’t know how she got them on the island.”

“You’re right,” Otto groaned. He pondered their problem for a few more moments in silence. “Well, we’re in a library. There has to be information on how to plan a party in a library, right?”

Lucy stood abruptly. “Right! I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes with what we’ve learned.”

Otto rose from his seat and started browsing the shelves for useful ideas—he’d read thousands of books, yet he couldn’t bring a single birthday-themed book to mind? What kind of child genius was he? He sifted his memory for titles that seemed relevant, memoirs that might contain helpful anecdotes or cookbooks with handy recipes. 

One problem: this was not the public library, just down the street from St. Sebastian’s Orphanage. This was the Higher Institute of Villainous Education, and the vast majority of its holdings related to evil, its history, and its manufacture. The memoir section had six volumes examining the life of Ernst Blofeld, but nothing relating to ordinary, everyday people and birthday parties they might have had. There was but one cookbook in the whole library: _Martha Stewart’s Vegetables_. 

Still, that didn’t mean anything. He could brush through the library’s digital holdings faster than just about anyone. Taking a seat at their table, Otto closed his eyes and connected to the library’s database, drawing to him books with the key words “birthday,” “party,” “celebration,” “host,” and “cake.”

He yielded three results; he didn’t think Lucy would be impressed. 

“Okay, it’s official,” Lucy said, taking her seat across from Otto. “I miss the internet. I got nothing.”

“I’ve been sorting through the digital books on file,” Otto said, and explained his sorting method. 

“Anything good?”

Otto pinched the bridge of his nose. “ _Taking the Cake_ , and its sequel, _Let them Eat Cake_ , both of which are about the importance of public image when trying to increase a country’s wealth gap. And the other one is called, _Hosting a Dead Man: Etiquette for Every Hostage Situation Known to Man!_ ”

“Maybe you should read that one,” Lucy sighed. “Because that’s the direction this party is headed.”

Two days later, T-minus-five days until the party, Lucy and Otto still found themselves floundering. They’d stolen a few minutes in the tech lab to compare notes and see what they had left to do. The answer was: almost everything. 

“Well, look at the bright side,” Lucy said. “We’ve ordered the food and the cake.”

Otto jammed his knuckles into his temples, looking for all the world like he might split his skull in half if he didn’t relax. “We don’t have anywhere to eat it. We didn’t reserve a study room, and now there are no openings. What are we going to do, just host the party in the dining hall?”

“I mean, it would be easy.”

“Oh yeah, because that will make it seem like we really care.”

Lucy frowned. “Can we cut the sarcasm? I’m having a hard time, too.”

“Right. Sorry.” 

Otto’s eyes drifted down to their list of things they had yet to do: come up with a theme, find a venue, find an activity to do, come up with and make party favors, and find their own gifts for Wing and Laura. Just five things—just.

“You know what the worst part is?” Otto said, 

“Hm?”

“I just keep thinking, we probably know what day they were conceived. They were probably New Year’s Eve sex.”

“Otto!” Lucy hissed, but a smile started to creep up her face. 

“No, really.” Otto lowered his voice. “Their birthday is October tenth. That’s forty weeks and three days. It doesn’t seem like there’s much to debate!”

Lucy was laughing now. “Shut up! For all you know, it could have been New Year’s Day sex.”

“Yeah, _early_ New Year’s Day sex.”

“Wait, wait. Does that mean Nigel is—”

“Christmas sex,” Otto confirmed.

They stared at each other for three seconds before dissolving into fits of giggles. 

“Oh god,” Lucy gasped, “Can you imagine what they were wearing?”

“Probably nothing, Lucy!”

“No, no, I mean like,” she paused. “I don’t know. Diabolus Darkdoom wrapping himself in a bow and wearing a Santa hat or, I don’t know—”

“Pulling the naughty list out of a stocking?”

Lucy buried her face in her arms to stifle her laughter. 

“It sounds like there’s something very funny happening in this lab,” said Professor Pike, swinging open the glass door. Otto and Lucy silenced themselves immediately.

“Sorry, professor,” Otto said primly. “We were just letting off some steam. We’ve been trying to plan a birthday party and haven’t been having much luck.”

The professor eyed them both, and Otto bit his lip before another laugh slipped out. 

“You know,” the professor said, his voice extremely suspicious. “One of the reasons that Dr. Nero founded a school rather than write a conclusive how-to manual on villainy was that he wanted students to have access to the experts in their fields. Perhaps you would benefit from getting some advice from someone who has done it before.”

Lucy and Otto exchanged looks. Shelby.

“That’s a good idea, professor,” Otto said. “We’ll do that.”

“See that this idea becomes a reality somewhere other than this lab,” the professor said firmly, and gave them one last stern look before closing the door. 

Lucy and Otto hurriedly gathered their things. They didn’t know what Shelby would say if they asked for her advice, but, Otto hoped, she would take pity on their desperation. She wasn’t heartless. 

“Just for the record,” he said, as they were about to leave. “I’m pretty sure that Shelby was birthday sex for her dad. But I can’t tell you how I know.”

Lucy shook her head. “That’s a-okay with me. I don’t want to.”

Later, after they’d determined a plan of attack, Otto approached Shelby, who was curled up with her lock picks in one of the common areas. 

“Otto,” she said cordially. Otto took a seat at her feet and summoned all the charm he was capable of mustering.

“We need help,” he told her.

Shelby smirked. “Sounds about right. Weren’t you and Lucy tag-teaming?”

“She’s working on finding gifts, since we haven’t done that either. We’re a little bit of a shit show right now.”

“Well, practice makes perfect.”

“Shel,” he said. “Please. Can you give us a hint?”

Shelby’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling. “Tell me what you’ve done so far.”

“Oh, wow!” Laura gasped. “This is beautiful!”

Otto and Laura grinned at each other, proud of their work. They’d managed to wrangle a small spot in the hydroponics facility, and the normally spartan lab had cleaned up well: a floral “Happy Birthday!” banner faced the doorway and the entire room was lit with blinking fairy lights. To top that, Ms. Gonzales had lent them a few trays of garden-variety flowers to add ambiance. The cake sat pristine on the counter. On the table, seven places were set with tins, wicks, and bottles of fragrance. 

“Candle-making,” Shelby approved. “That’s perfect.”

Wing studied the table with an impassive expression. “Are we permitted to light candles in our cells?”

“We did ask about that,” Otto said. “Apparently we are. I think they kind of expect us to set fires in our rooms anyway, so doing it in a controlled, relatively safe setting is completely uninteresting to them.”

“But it only takes one person to ruin it for everyone,” Nigel said, looking pointedly at Franz. “So we’re going to be extra-careful when we light these in our room, right?”

“I am not the only person in the world who has made mistakes!” Franz protested. “The thing with the shark tank was months ago.”

“Don’t worry, buddy,” Lucy said, patting his shoulder. “If you burn down the entire block, everyone will forget about the shark tank.”

The friendly banter persisted as they settled down and began microwaving the wax and mixing fragrances. 

“You know what would really make this?” Nigel said, inhaling Wing’s mix. “Rosemary. Let me go grab some.”

With the confidence of someone who practically lived in the hydroponics lab, Nigel sprang out of his seat and took off in a run.

“That’s poor lab safety, and he knows it,” Otto clucked.

“So, what gave you the idea to do this?” Laura asked, gesturing at the room.

“A wise person told us to build the party around the activity we wanted to do as a group,” Otto said.

“So wise,” Lucy interjected. “Like, extremely wise. Amazingly wise.”

“The wisest,” Otto agreed.

“Brown-nosing won’t convince me to end my strike,” Shelby said placidly, pointedly not looking up from clothespinning the wicks of her candles. 

“Anyways, once we had that in mind, it was easy to connect candle-making with the hydroponics lab, because Ms. Gonzales has so many fragrances extracted from her plants already,” Otto continued smoothly. “And then we just built everything around that.”

“It’s funny,” Franz commented. “Because usually, you are putting the candles in the cake. But tonight, we are making cupcake-sized candles!”

Wing was struck by this. “I think that’s ironic.”

“What’s ironic?” Nigel asked, returning with a dark bottle in his hand.

“Making candles inside a volcano,” Shelby replied. “ _That_ is ironic.”

Lucy struck a match to begin lighting the cake. “You’re not wrong. Is everyone ready to sing?”

“Please don’t sing,” Laura winced.

She was swiftly overruled, and—with the cake being served, the candles setting, and the gifts ready to unwrap—Otto and Lucy shared accomplished smiles. As Wing and Laura dutifully blew out their candles, Otto leaned over with a sly expression on his face.

“Happy new year,” he whispered, making Lucy choke on her drink. She coughed violently, turning away from the table to hide her red face. 

“What did you _say_ to her?” Laura asked, pounding Lucy on the back.

“Nothing,” Lucy wheezed, to the disbelief of everyone. “It was really, really, really nothing.”


End file.
